MEAT V. FISH,

Observer, Volume 4, Issue 102, 26 August 1882, Page 371

MEAT V. FISH.

Sir, — Every paterfamilias owes you thanks for your ventilation regarding butchers' meat. There is yet another article of food which wants looking into, and that is fish. My wife bought to-day four flat-fish, for which she paid one shilling. These, when cleaned and prepared for cooking, weighed exactly 2lbs., or 6d per Ib. Now, as I can buy a forequarter of mutton for 2i-d per lb., or nearly 51bs for a Is, it strikes me that the price of fish is far beyond its value, and is an article of luxury, instead of, as it should be in this climate, an article of daily food. I also find lAcanI A can buy a tin of salmon for lOd — this is free of bone, and ready for consumption; and although it comes all the way from America, and pays duty, is still cheaper than New Zealand fish caught at our door, which require-' but/lor, a at! other » Lings before it ?a put on the table.

A good ac«lo£ onr fi?li come? from t'iiuTliiuru.*., f whero, T am informed, ':bciv is a.fisb i -in>:;. Th<V'r:| is nevor a flucluatH'nii) price, r.Sj shoald.tkcy «v.'<j 1 an unnynai 1-iiul. Miey fire nob 'Yu-vrjrai'ed "to" market, \, at i.i;:ov.;.a •>& tbi y,-L;>.r?; vuul/jio 'tlluifexorbitant price is iuainta.ia.ed. . Xii these days of

not started. They have • met 'iwith unbounded success in all towns of the> old country. In your estimate last week of butchers' meat there is one thing you have greatly under-valued, and ,that is, the hide, which you give at 15s ;— 2ss is the price I

; To the Editor -: Sir, — In your last week's issue 'you had an article on the so-called "Meat Monopoly," and quoted some figures which I think must have been supplied by Mr Roche, of the Waikato. Yoxir correspondent is either inexcusably ignorant, or (what is worse, if, as he "states he has been a butcher) wilfully trying to mislead the public. With regard to mutton — which is sold wholesale about 3d per lb., that is, a 601 b sheep costs 15s. In Auckland legs can be bought at 4d per lb., loins, B£d to 4d, and forequarters, 2d, or added together, and an average struck, about 3*d per lb. In other words the butcher gets back the price he has paid for the carcase, leaving the offal for profit and trade expenses. Mr Roche's calculations with regard to beef are equally inaccurate. He supposes a 6001 b ox to yield 3501bs of roasts at 7d and 5d per lb respectively, while the fact is it will not yield more than 2 sirloins of 301 b each, and two sets ribs of 251bs each, or llOlbs in each,, the average retail price of which is s|-d per lb, so he only overestimates the best joints by 2401b5, and this single item squashes his gigantic profits to £6, and the rest of his calculations are proportionately misleading and incorrect. I know that the graziers have received poor returns for their labours during \the past summer. The butchers are not to blame for this — but the overstocked market — |by the consignments coming coastwise. The only solution to this problem is — freeze the overplus and send it to England, and so ease the Auckland market, when our farmers will find the butchers as ready to give 30s per 1001 b, as they now give 245, and thus give them a remunerative return. If anyone is reaping any benefit from the low rates at present ruling, it is the Auckland public, who, with first-class joints selling so low are getting so fastidious that they will scarcely look at a coarse joint, (and who shall blame them) while the rising generation are developing quite epicurean tastes, for which it will be well if they i don't have to pay .some day. Owing to the small retail demand I venture to say that the majority of the Auckland butchers do not make more than 2d per lb of half their boning beef. What our profits are after paying the very heavy expenses inevitable to our business I shall not satisfy Mr Roche by saying, but if he wants to know let him or his friends open a shop in Auckland, when like Adam and Eve. after eating the apple, their eyes will be opened, and they will learn by experience ; but'they say a certain class of people won't learn in any other school. — I , am, &c, * AtrcKiAKD Btttcheb, August 15, 1882.

[The " Auckland Butcher " is, to use his own worde, " either so inexcusably ignorant, or what is worse, is trying to mislead the public," when he advances the extraordinary argument that the present high prices of meat are the consequence of an overstocked cattle market. The argument is too thin. An " Auckland Butcher " should take out a. patent for a new and startling discovery in political economy, almost as original as the discovery of the mysterious affinity between delirium tremens and measles. .We need not waste space on his palpable misrepresentations of figures. It is sufficient that they are contradicted by the experience of every consumer, and actually by the advertised prices in the newspapers. " Auckland Butcher " has taken good care to conceal his name, in order that consumers may not take him at his word and rush his shop for meat at his own quotations. The other amusing paradox in his funny letter is his advocacy of a foreign -market for surplus stock, in order to raise the prices of meat and still further increase the already enormous profits of the butchers. — Ed. Obs.] ■